“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “we will; but, Uncle Paul, Mrs Mullion, let me say a few words first. I had a father who gave me all my early education—all that was not given by my tender, gentle mother. My father in his lessons to me taught me what his true, sterling character had been through life. ‘Jeff, my boy,’ he has said to me a thousand times, ‘when once you have put your hand to a task, keep to it till you have mastered it.’”
“Yes, yes, you learned your lesson well,” said the old man, nodding his head approvingly, for Geoffrey had laid his cigar on the edge of the table, where it burned slowly beneath its pearly ash, and had paused, as if waiting for him to speak.
“Another thing my father said, too, as many times perhaps, Mr Paul, was this: ‘Come rich, Jeff, come poor, strive to be a gentleman through life, and never let it be said of you that you told a lie.’”
“Good, yes—good advice, Geoffrey Trethick,” said the old man, smiling. “If I had had a son, I would have said the same.”
“Then, look here, Mr Paul,” cried Geoffrey, excitedly, as he rose up and towered in his manly strength above the little old yellow nabob. “I tell you this: I never knowingly yet told a lie, and, God helping me, I never will!”
There was a strange silence in that room as the young man’s distinct, loud voice ceased for a few moments, and mother and uncle sat eagerly waiting for his next utterances.
“Now that I have said that,” continued Geoffrey, “let me look you both in the face, and tell you that you have done me a cruel wrong.”
“A cruel wrong?” began the old man, hotly.
“Yes,” continued Geoffrey, “a cruel wrong. Poor Madge has spoken out at last; and so will I.”
“This is a cruel—”